What 'staggers' me is not so much surveillance but the situation is made out to be a big secret uncovered when in fact companies openly declare and brag that that they are using surveillance. That's what is openly happening and perfectly legal and accepted by stupid governments. Why suddenly talk as though they've 'uncovered' a big secret? How far does all this have to go before the explosion?

The UK decided to opt out of EU altogether - but for the remaining states of the EU there is the new and shiny GDPR, wich made a lot of the common surveilance/telemetry/tracking shit illegal to use (well, for corporations at least). Maybe, other, somehow united, states may follow the example and enact similar laws...

Ah... I meant the BIG explosion. The one where the personal details of several billion people is published with addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, bank details, credit card details and what colour you painted your back fence. The info being gathered and traded is worth big bucks. The smart, self-improving software that analyses it is comparing and matching profile patterns. Skynet will decide our fate in a microsecond.

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you.

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I'll be watching you.

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I'll be watching you.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

Wich of the two is involved in the drone strikes wich still kill real people every week in Afghanistan?

The real hard battlefields are not in Russia and China. They are in our own countries and governments.

We need to have freedom and democracy at home before it would make any sense to think about exporting the concepts to Russia and China.

It's impossible not to have casualties in an Asian country where police smokes opium every day. Where Pakistan supports Taliban for decades.

Corporations should indeed face pressure for their advocating of the devil at home, but there really are no legal remedies at home to blame them. They just adapt to how better to get the cash flowing. Whether a customized and censored Google for China or otherwise. How low do you think dictatorships have to fall to subdue to inevitable change and respect rules? The farther we go, the more dangerous they get.

By the same line of thought North Korea should be left alone. But that will never happen because they're a danger to themselves and the world. It is equally important to have freedom and democracy everywhere. Because the only states 100% sovereign and nationalist as populists trump out is North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran - all of them of course supplied with weapons and money by the former USSR.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

So many websites now shove up a big page-covering popup insisting we need to allow cookies for the website to work properly or at its best (but which I can often circumvent in Opera 12 by disabling positioning, at which point I find the website works fine. But https://www.bbc.co.uk/news has a simple non-popup header at the top which scrolls away when you scroll down so its not intrusive. However, it does say: We use Cookies - Yes, I agreed (ticked without my consent.) And I find they have set 6 cookies, some bbc domains, plus edigitalsurvey.com and scorecardresearch.com

I have cookies set session only so they're automatically deleted when I close the browser but as a test I set cookies to 'never' and deleted all those cookies then returned to the bbc website. No complaint from them that I've disabled cookies. No popup. Same header saying I agree. I checked cookies and as expected, no new cookies from them. Just seems odd that different website work different ways. Not sure any of them know what they're doing.

It seems to me the ideal would be like the bbc but the opposite way round, it saying by default: Cookies: NO then a link to read clear info (no deceit) about any advantages, with an option to set them ON. That would seem sensible, non-intrusive, and fair to me but I doubt if any website will do what is sensible, non-intrusive, and fair. Not seen any yet.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...